Portal:Water/Spotlight on Campaign Donations and Lobbying

In the state of Pennsylvania, a clear correlation can be seen between the money given to the state's politicians and their support of drilling into the Marcellus Shale. In a groundbreaking study titled "Deep Drilling, Deep Pockets: The Campaign Contributions and Lobbying Expenditures of the Natural Gas Industry in Pennsylvania," Common Cause followed the money, demonstrating that money flowing from oil companies had a clear impact on the behavior of Pennsylvania politicians.

The report reveals that the natural gas industry gave $2.85 million to political candidates in Pennsylvania between 2001 and March of 2010, with the campaign contributions flowing in at a particular prominent level post-2005, and especially post-2008. In addition, the industry spent $4.2 million on lobbying since 2007. The authors point out that the Quaker State has no real limit to campaign contributions and, on top of that, the data is not easily searchable by ordinary citizens; as Common Cause points out, Pennsylvania is often described as the "Wild West" of campaign financing. As the report notes "the Marcellus Shale has enabled the industry to promise a modern-day Gold Rush for the state." The combination of the modern-day Gold Rush alongside Wild West campaign finance laws is a deadly duo, said the report.

The report also reveals that Tom Corbett, the current Republican Governor in Pennsylvania has received over $360,000 dollars in industry contributions since 2001, which is over three and a half times the amount of contributions received by any other politician. And although supportive of a severance tax, former Democratic Governor Ed Rendell also has called himself the industry's "best ally," even though the industry gave nearly four time as much dough to his opponent. Rendell had received over $84,000 in campaign contributions from the gas and oil industry since 2001. Corbett's opponent in the 2010 race for governor, Dan Onorato, received roughly $60,000 in campaign funding, putting him at seventh on the list of top 25 recipients of industry contributions from 2001 through April 2010. While there are three Democrats in the Top Ten of that list, only five in the top 25, with Republicans receiving 84% of contributions ($2.28 million) and Democrats receiving 16% ($428,000), according to Common Cause. Either way, the methane gas industry is working both sides of the aisle, hedging its bets by give significant funds to candidates from both parties in order to obtain favorable policies.

The entire report can be seen here. Common Cause has since created an entire campaign finance database dedicated to tracking the vast influence of money from methane gas drilling companies in the state-level elections in the state of Pennsylvania. That database is titled, appropriately enough, "Marcellus Money," and can be seen here. $3,442,212 was donated to elected officials currently in office in PA, according to the database. The top recipient for the 2010 election was Governor Tom Corbett, with a total $1,634,096 recieved in contributions from the methane gas industry. He was followed by Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati, with $293,333.

In June, 2010, Common Cause of New York released a Part One of a report titled "Deep Drilling, Deep Pockets: Expenditures of the Natural Gas Industry in New York to Influence Public Policy." The report demonstrated that as the gas and oil industry has begun pushing forward with its drilling campaign in the Marcellus Shale, so too has the magnitude of their lobbying expenses. In 2009, says the report, over $650,000 were spent on lobbying, while in the first four months of 2010, that amount has already nearly been surpassed, with two-thirds of the year still remaining. The report goes on to show that the most active lobbying efforts in New York were put forth by Exxon, Chesapeake Energy, and Cabot Oil and Gas. These companies have melded together as a collective "trade association" that goes by the name of Independent Oil and Gas Association, resembling Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale Coalition.

Compared to the period between the years 2006 through 2009, a period during which lobbying expenditures totaled nearly $110,000, the expenditures jumped six-fold in 2009, totaling nearly $670,000. The entire report can be seen here.

Part two of that report, released in April 2011, also focused on lobbying by methane gas companies, as opposed to the focus of the Pennsylania report, which focused on campaign finance by those same companies. The report's Executive summary states, "Analysis showed that the companies and entities which opposed a moratorium on natural gas drilling outspentthose entities which supported the moratorium by a margin of 4 to 1. Chesapeake Energy, the nation’s second largest producer of methane gas, was the biggest spender among industry advocates of fracking, disclosing a total of $1,090,051 spent lobbying in NY in 2010. [By] contrast, the biggest spender amongthe groups that supported the moratorium, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, an entity which lobbies onnumerous environmental issues, not only natural gas exploitation, spent $159,232 lobbying in 2010." The report, in its entirity, can be read here.

An important story written by ProPublica on the same topic is titled "Opponents to Fracking Disclosure Take Big Money From Industry" and can be seen here: http://www.propublica.org/article/opponents-to-fracking-disclosure-take-big-money-from-industry. CMD's Steve Horn also wrote on the topic of the nexus of electoral funding and methane gas companies, which can be seen here.